With the benefit of 11 years of hindsight, lets talk about Star Trek Into Darkness. Cards on the table: I don’t like this movie at all. It’s probably my least favorite Star Trek story across the entire canon.
While this movie was being promoted, no one would confirm that Cumberbatch was Khan despite rampant speculation. He’s not even introduced as Khan, for the first half of the movie he’s “John Harrison,” and the Khan reveal is played as a big dramatic moment.
JJ Abrams’ entire shtick is that he crafts “mystery boxes.” So… is that it? Is Star Trek Into Darkness just a mystery box where the identity of the villain is the mystery, and Abrams & co. just worked backwards from there?
Lets be generous and say that’s not it: Into Darkness had something to say. We have a conspiracy, a rogue admiral, an automated super-warship, the death of a mentor… it seems like we can pull something out of here, right?
… right?
I have to admit that I was blinded by all the classic Trek references and actually enjoyed this and the 2009 movie on my first watch. It was a fun action movie with a Star Trek coat of paint on it, which got me to the theaters.
After a little while, however, the flashy new paint started peeling, and I realized that I had just liked it because it was new. It doesn’t share the same place in my heart as TOS, so whenever I feel the inclination to watch Kirk & crew explore the galaxy again, I go back to the original.
The visuals, music, and fight scenes were cool, but the writing felt superficial and boring. The same argument might be made for the original 6 movies, but I think the difference is that where the original movies felt like an encore for a beloved cast/crew that audiences were dying to see more of, the JJ movies were built without the same foundation. Watching them now feels like I’m watching a shadow of something else that was great.